What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? How do you spell supersede? Is it hippy or hippie? These questions really matter to Bill Bryson, as they do to anyone who cares about the English language. Originally published as "The Penguin Dictionary for Writers and Editors", "Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors" has now been completely revised and updated for the twenty-first century by Bill Bryson himself. For more options...

John Sutherland takes the reader on a literary journey from the first English novels of three hundred years ago to the present avalanche of ten thousand a year. In a series of informed and intelligent conversations set around a variety of exemplary texts he shows that reading a novel is not a spectator sport, but an intense participatory activity. For more options...

From empty cliche to meaningless jargon, dangling participle to sentences without verbs, the English language is reeling. It is under attack from all sides. For more options...

From Oscar Wilde's witty observation in Lady Windermere's Fan that 'I can resist everything except temptation', to Zsa Zsa Gabor's admission that 'I know nothing about sex, because I was always married', and by way of Woody Allen's numerous bon mots to the anonymous definition of psychiatry as being 'the care of the id by the odd', Connie Robertson has woven together a hilarious, stimulating and thought-provoking collection of the best humorous quotations which will provide the reader with much to ponder over long after the book has been put aside. The Wordsworth Book of Humorous Quotations will delight the browser and the simply curious while also providing the student, journalist and after-dinner speaker with a wealth of valuable material. For more options...

Humiliation is not unique to writers. However, the world of letters does seem to offer a near-perfect micro-climate for embarrassment and shame. For more options...

"The Penguin Writers' Guides" series provides authoritative, succinct and easy-to-follow guidance on specific aspects of written English. Whether you need to brush up your skills or get to grips with something for the first time, these invaluable Guides will help you find the best way to get your message across clearly and effectively. For more options...

Mervyn Peake has been acclaimed as an author of fantasy and as an illustrator, but as yet has received little attention from literary critic. This book is the first to analyse all of Peake's works of fiction, including his two picture story books and novellas as well as the Gormenghast series and Mr Pye. For more options...

For more than a quarter of a century, Pat Schneider has helped writers find and liberate their true voices. She has taught all kinds - the award winning, the struggling, and those who have been silenced by poverty and hardship. For more options...

David Crystal, one of the world's leading commentators on language, tackles the proverbs of the world. A new anthology of global proverbs has not been compiled for over 70 years. For more options...

First and foremost an outcry against injustice and inhumanity, "Unto this Last" is also a closely argued assault on the science of political economy, which dominated the Victorian period. Ruskin was a profoundly conservative man who looked back to the Middle Ages as a Utopia, yet his ideas had a considerable influence on the British socialist movement. For more options...

In his essay on the "Notebooks of Tennessee Williams", Colm Toibin reveals an artist 'alone and deeply fearful and unusually selfish' and one profoundly tormented by his sister's mental illness. Through the relationship between W.B. For more options...

The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" pens a work of literary non-fiction--a series of linked essays in praise of reading and writing. . For more options...

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was the most important critic of the last century and one of the period's greatest writers of English prose. He exercised an enormous influence not only on the theory but also on the practice of the arts, and by his powerful advocacy of Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites and the Gothic style decisively affected the course of British art and architecture. For more options...

The Penguin Writers' Guides series provides authoritative, succinct and easy-to-follow guidance on specific aspects of written English. Whether you need to brush up your skills or get to grips with something for the first time, these invaluable Guides will help you find the best way to get your message across clearly and effectively. For more options...

"Other Colours" is a collection of immediate relevance and timeless value, ranging from lyrical autobiography to criticism of literature and culture, from humour to political analysis, from delicate evocations of his friendship with his daughter Ruya to provocative discussions of Eastern and Western art. It also covers Pamuk's recent, high profile, court case. For more options...

This is a major new edition of the "Little Oxford Thesaurus", offering the most accurate and up-to-date coverage of essential vocabulary for all your writing needs. It provides 140,000 alternative and opposite words, and gives the closest and most frequently used synonyms first, making the thesaurus quick and easy to use. For more options...